Who composed the Law & Order: SVU theme music?

Mike Post composed the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit theme music. The piece, commonly identified as “Theme of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” adapts the franchise’s recognizable musical language for the darker subject matter of SVU.

Post is one of television’s most prolific composers and created music for the original Law & Order as well as multiple related series. The Law & Order sound is known for its clipped, tense rhythm, dramatic percussion, and signature “dun, dun” effect, which functions almost like an audio punctuation mark between scenes.

A common mistake is to credit W. G. Snuffy Walden, Mark Snow, or Danny Elfman, all notable television or film composers. They did not compose the SVU theme. Mike Post’s role concerns the music; Steven Zirnkilton, by contrast, supplies the familiar spoken opening narration.